Tag: Windows 9

People eager to throw off the shackles of Windows 8.x look like they’ll have some time to wait before they’re free at last.

According to PC Advisor, a “consumer preview2 will be released in January so you’ll be able to see what you’re missing for quite a long time. Windows 10 isn’t now expected until the second half of next year.

Reuters, quoting Microsoft’s chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, said the launch was likely to be the early Autumn.

Reports suggest that Windows 10 may well be free of charge to existing Windows 8.x users. Microsoft isn’t giving any details of prices yet and so no one is clear what the upgrade paths are likely to be.

The operating system is likely to look more like Windows 7 than Windows 8.x – the latter was Microsoft’s ill fated attempt to resemble other tablet operating systems like iOS and Android.

Even Microsoft insiders wondered what the company was doing with such a hybrid.

Microsoft’s decision to skip the number nine and jump straight to Windows 10 seems to be some kind of weird marketing move – as usual, it is describing the future OS as the “best OS yet”.

When software giant Microsoft declared that its new operating system would be called Windows 10, many of us wondered what was wrong with Windows 9 as a name.

After all, the number, nine has a good reputation. There were, for example, The Nine Worthies – nine historical, or semi-legendary figures who, in the Middle Ages, were believed to personify the ideals of chivalry. There are nine muses in Greek mythology including Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.

Of course, there were nine circles of Hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy, but that was unlikely to put people off buying an operating system. Microsoft claimed that Windows 10 was so cool and so unlike the doomed Windows 8 that it was unfair to call it Windows 9, which is about as unlikely as Mark Hurd returning as the CEO of HP.

Now it seems a Microsoft developer has spilled the beans. Microsoft skipped Windows 9 and went straight to 10 fearing a problem like the Y2K bug.

The developer “Cranbourne” told Rededit that “early testing revealed just how many third party products had code in the form of Windows 9”, referring to benchmark operating systems Windows 95 and Windows 98.

He said: “This was the pragmatic solution to avoid that.”

Basically there was a lump of short-sighted code short cut designed to differentiate between Windows 95 and 98 that was too stupid to grasp that there was now a Windows 9.

It sounds daft, but Indie developer Christer Kaitila pointed out that more than 4,000 applications use the ancient coding cock-up somewhere under the bonnet of their software.

Microsoft would make each of them think that they were looking at Windows 98 rather than Windows 9 and when it could not find the floppy drive, or see a hard-drive bigger than a GB, they would pack a sad. Microsoft was never very good at software, to be fair, but excellent at marketing.

Software giant Microsoft appears to have lost count with Windows 9 and has instead jumped to Windows 10 as the next version of its operating system.

Microsoft today skipped a number and announced Windows 10, the OS formerly known as Threshold and the successor to Windows 8/8.1.

Windows head Terry Myerson said during a press event with a small gathering of reporters in San Francisco that Windows 10 will be Vole’s most comprehensive platform ever and “it wouldn’t be right to call it Windows 9”.

We can’t see the logic of this, sure coming up with a different name is one thing, but changing the number order just says “we can’t count and Mrs “Hookjaw” Anderson is going to terrify us when we have to show up at her maths class to recite our seven times table.”

So what is really so different? Windows 10 is designed to run on a wide range of devices with screen sizes running the gamut from four inches all the up to 80 inch surface. Microsoft will have a single application platform with one integrated Store to deliver Windows experiences across all those devices.

Unfortunately, for those of us who use real computers this means that Windows 10 has been built for a “mobile-first, cloud-first world”. This means more of all the sort of thinking that made Windows 8.1 useless to serious computer users.

However, word on the street says that Windows 10 looks a bit like Windows 7. It has a hybrid Start menu that combines Windows 7 era features with Windows 8 style tiles.

Microsoft appears to have realised that it has to think about the enterprise so that business users coming from Windows 7 or Windows 8 so they can hop right in and be productive. Microsoft’s second priority is “modern management” of lots of computers.

The “Modern UI” hacked off power users has gone in Windows 10. In place of the Modern UI are Live Tiles integrated into the right side of the Start menu on the Desktop. On the left side are pinned and frequent apps.

There’s also a refreshed taskbar with a new “task view” that presents all of your running apps. Windows 10 allows you to tile up to four apps on the same screen.

There is a command prompt that allows you to use keyboard shortcuts, along with copy and paste, and a Charms Bar that may or may not make it into the final cut.

We expect to see a technical preview of Windows 10 next week and the launch of the OS by spring 2015, assuming that Microsoft can count that far.

While very many people haven’t yet upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1, and very many people have stuck with Windows XP, it seems that Microsoft will show off Windows 9 soon.

Paul Thurrott’s Supersite for Windows has delivered some Windows 9 screenshots from sources he is not ready to name in advance of Windows Technical Preview – due out in October.

And guess what, Microsoft is bringing back the Start menu. There was much gnashing of teeth when it decided not to build it into Windows 8.x Start menu, particularly among corporate users of the operating system.

The preview uses the same Store as Windows 8.1, while mobile apps will run in floating windows on the desktop, according to Paul Thurrott.

Microsoft has a long running record of producing versions of Windows that are dogs followed by versions that are functional and popular.

Windows Vista was a dog, and Windows 8.x is a pooch too. Perhaps Windows 9 will be better.

Microsoft normally follows a pattern with its operating systems – one successful version is followed by a total stuff up.

Theoretically that should means that Windows 9 should be great, but leaked screen shots of the coming attraction shows that Microsoft could be headed for yet another disaster.

The update, codenamed Threshold and possibly called Windows 9 or just plain Windows, takes some features from Windows 8 and grafts them onto the classic Windows 7 desktop. This is a sop to most Windows users, like me, who hated having to dumb down their computers by running tablet software as the interface.

When running in windowed mode, Windows Store apps will get a button in the top-left corner. Clicking the button brings up a list of functions that previously appeared in the Charms bar, including Search, Share, Play, Project and Settings. This menu will let users switch the app to full screen mode as well.

There will be some new buttons to the desktop taskbar — a search button sits immediately to the right of the Start button, followed by a button for switching between multiple desktops. The latter feature, possibly called “virtual desktops,” will let users switch between several sets of desktop apps and layouts.

On the right side of the taskbar, users will find a new notifications button, with a pop-up menu that will presumably show messages from Windows Store apps.

The screenshots show that Microsoft is keeping the Charms bar, which many expected would be culled.

While all of this is subject to change as Microsoft has not even released a public beta yet, but it is clear that Windows 9 is not really going to be much different from Windows 8.

This is a major problem, particularly as Windows 7 will be starting to look a little elderly by the time Windows 9 hits the shops. Part of the problem is that Microsoft refuses to understand that people do not want their PCs running like a tablet. When you are sitting at a PC you are there for serious work and serious programs, you do not want to have to jump between screens looking for software you do not want.

How often PC users will want to visit the app store is anyone’s guess, yet Microsoft appears to be trying its hardest to make this easier.

What is annoying is that the software behind the interface is much better and more reliable than Windows 7, but the software is crippled by its interface.

This will create huge problems for Microsoft. When it put out Windows Vista people just stayed using Windows XP. Now, rather than use Windows 8, users are sticking to Windows 7. If Windows 9 is just Windows 8 in drag then people are going to want to stay with Windows 7 even longer. That is going to make it even more venerable and established that XP was.

Microsoft needs to get back to design basics and work out why people use a desktop. Hint: it is not because they want a more powerful tablet.

A leak has tipped up on the nternet suggesting what Microsoft’s new start menu will look like in Windows 9

It had been known for some time that Microsoft had been reverting back to its start menu for desktop users after its move to a more tablet interface went down like rent boy at a Tory conference.

To be honest the start menu is not that exciting, unless you have tried to live without one for longer than a month. It is all stuff which will be familiar to Windows 7 users with a couple of minor tweaks.

It is clear that this is an early build of next generation of Windows and might be tweaked still further before Windows 9 comes out. Still there is only so much that you can do to a start bar to make it new.

The image says that the start bar is for Win 8.1 Pro however, the world on the street is that it is actually a legitimate Windows 9 version. Builds inside of Microsoft still use this branding.

This build 9788 is said to be floating around the web but has so far not been a full leak. We expect that there will be a more complete leak in the near future.

In the meantime here is the thread where the leaks appear be being posted

Software giant Microsoft has been hinting that it will make changes in Windows 9 which should satisfy those who are using Windows 7 and will not upgrade.

While Windows 8 has been a disaster for Microsoft because it forced desktop users to conform to a tablet format and download Apps which did not function as well as their desktop version.

Word on the superinformationstrasse is that Vole is planning to further merge the Modern UI with the desktop in Windows 9 and might reduce the OS’s use for tablet users.

According to WinBeta,the cunning plan is that tablet users will see the demise of the desktop in Windows 9. Instead Microsoft is set to replace Win32 applications with Modern UI alternatives in Windows 9, meaning Windows is set to get a full on Modern UI facelift when it rolls around next year.

This means that the desktop will no longer have a place for tablet users running Windows RT.
This fits into rumours regarding Windows Phone and Windows RT becoming one operating system. This would see Windows Phone devices and Windows RT tablets run the same operating system with no desktop. If the device hardware requires it, a cut down version of the desktop will be available, but this is not likely to be seen much.

Vole is apparently worried about Chrome OS. It wants to make Windows Phone free, and Windows RT being merged with it. This will use this as the cheaper alternative for OEMs to sell tablets and cheap laptops too.

These laptops will run apps from the Windows Store just like on Chrome OS, which is limited to Chrome OS apps, the Windows Phone/RT devices will be limited to Windows Store apps.

This means that Windows 9 will be different depending on the hardware you use and you will only see a desktop if you are actually on the desktop.

Word on the street is that Microsoft will allow Modern UI apps to run in the desktop, in windowed mode, and have Modern UI apps pinned to the Start Menu instead of a Start Screen.